University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

A sense of caution—or it may be of shame
—determined me to keep the marriage, as long
as I well could, from the knowledge of the one
being whom it most injured. A few days before
that assigned for the event, I proceeded
to the place of usual rendezvous. I had not
seen her for several days before; and her looks
indicated sickness and suspicion. The latter
appearance, I did not seem to observe, but
her indisposition called forth my enquiries and
regrets. I still strove to wear the guise of affection,
but my words were cold, and my manner,
I feel assured, wore all the features of
the most confirmed indifference. “You look

unwell, Emily,” I observed, putting my arms
around her—“you have not been so, have
you?”

“Can you ask,” was her reply, as her eyes
were mournfully riveted upon my own;
“could I continue well, and not see you for
three days? alas! Martin, you little know
how long a period in time is three whole days
to me in your absence. Where have you been
—have you been sick—you look not as you
are wont to look. You are troubled and something
afflicts you.”

Her manner was tender in the extreme—
the suggestion even by herself of indisposition
as a cause of my absence, seemed to
awaken all her solicitude, and to make her
regret her own implied reproaches.

“I have been slightly unwell, Emily,” was
my reply, in a tone gravely adapted to indicate
something of continued indisposition; and
the possibility that this was the case, brought
out all her fondness. How like a child—a
sweet confiding child she then spoke to me.
With what deep and fervid devotion—and,
yet, at the very moment that the accents of
her voice were most touching and tender, I
had begun to hate her. She was in my way
—I saw how utterly impossible it was, that,
feeling for me as she did, she could ever
tolerate a connexion with me, shared at the
same time with another.

“But—there is one thing, Martin—one
thing of which I would speak—and, hear me
patiently, and be not angry, if in what I say, I
may do you injustice and may not have heard

rightly. Say, now, that you will not be angry
with your Emily—that you will forgive her
speech if it seem to call in question your integrity,
for, as I live, Martin, I think you
intend me no wrong.”

And as she spoke, her hand grasped my
arm convulsively, while one of her own, as
if with a spasmodic effort, wound itself about
my neck. I saw that the time for stern collision
was at hand—that busy tongues had
been about her, and I steeled myself stubbornly
for the struggle and the strife.

“And, what do they say, Emily—and who
are they that say, that which calls for such a
note of preparation? Speak out—say on!”

“I will, Martin—but look not so upon me.
I cannot bear your frown—any thing but
that.”

“Now then—what is said. What would
you have, Emily?”

“There have been those to my mother,
Martin—who have doubted your love for me,
and, ignorant of how much importance it is to
me now, who say, you are only seeking to beguile
and to mislead me.”

“They do me wrong, Emily—they speak
false, believe me, as I live.”

“I knew it, Martin—I knew that they did
you wrong, and I told them so, but they
sneered and laughed, and so they left me.
But, Martin—they will speak to others, when
I shall not be there to defend you, and we
shall both suffer under their suspicions.”

She paused here, and her eye sunk under
the penetrating gaze of mine, but suddenly
recovering, and hurrying herself, as if she

feared the loss of that momentary impulse
which then came to sustain her—she proceeded—

“I knew that I should suffer from you no
injustice—I could not think it possible that
you could wrong the poor girl, who had confided
to you so far;—but Martin—do not smile
at my folly—a something whispers me I have
not long, not very long, to live, and I would
be your wife—your married wife—before the
time comes when my sin shall stand embodied
before me. Let me have the peace—the
peace, Martin, which our lawful union will
bring with it; for now I have none. You have
promised me frequently—say now that we
shall be married this week—say on Thursday,
Martin—on Thursday next that it shall take
place.”

I started as she concluded the sentence, as
if I had been stung with an adder. Thursday
was the day appointed for my marriage with
Constance. Had she heard of this. I fixed
my eyes attentively and searchingly upon her
own; but though filled with tears, they quailed
not beneath my glance. On the contrary
her gaze was full of intenseness and expression.
They conveyed, in dumb language the
touching appeal of her subdued and apprehensive,
though seemingly confident and assured,
spirit. Disappointment, and the hope
deferred that maketh the heart sick, had worn
her into meagreness. Her cheeks were pale
—her look was that of suppressed wretchedness,
but these things touched me not. I had
no notion of compliance, and my only thought
was how to break off a connexion that promised

to be so excessively troublesome. I had
now become completely tired of her, and told
her peremptorily that it was impossible, for a
variety of reasons, to grant her request. She
implored—she made a thousand appeals to
every supposed impulse and emotion of manhood
and affection; to my pride, to my honor,
to my love. I was inflexible; and finally, when
she continued to press the matter with a warmth
and earnestness natural to one in her situation,
particularly as I had given no reason for
my refusal, I grew brutally stern in my replies.
I repulsed her tendernesses, and peevishly at
length, uttered some threat, I know not what
—of absence, or indifference, or anger.

She retreated from me a pace, and drawing
her hands over her eyes, seemed desirous
of shutting out the presence of a character so

entirely new and unexpected, as I now appeared
to her. For a moment she preserved this
attitude in silence—then suddenly again approaching,
in subdued accents, she spoke as
at first.

“Your words and look, Martin, just now
were so strange and unnatural that I was almost
afraid of you. Do not speak so again
to your Emily, but oh, grant her prayer—her
last prayer. I do not pray for myself, for
though I could not live without your affections,
I shall not need them long, but I pray you
to give a name, an honorable name, to the
little innocent of this most precious burthen.
Let it not, if it lives, curse the mother for the
boon of a life which its fellows must despise,
and speak of with scorn and ignominy.”

I stood even this appeal. My heart was
steeled within me, and, though I spoke to
her less harshly, I spoke as hypocritically as
ever. She saw through the thin veil which I
had deemed it necessary to throw over my
dishonesty, and a new expression took the
place of tenderness in her features.

“It is all true then, as they have said,” she
exclaimed passionately. “Now, O God, do
I feel my infirmity—now do I know my sin.
And this is the creature I have loved—this is
the thing—wanting in the heart to feel, and
mean enough in soul to utter falsehood and
prevaricate—this is the creature for whom I
have sacrificed my heart—for whom I have
given up, hopelessly and haplessly, my own
soul. Oh, wretched fool—oh, miserable, most
miserable folly. Yet think not,” and as she

turned upon me, she looked like the Priestess
upon the tripod, influenced with inspiration—
“Think not, mean traitor, as thou art—think
not to triumph in thy farther seduction. Me
thou hast destroyed,—I am thy victim, and I
feel the doom already. But thou shalt go
no farther in thy way. I will seek out this
lady, for whose more attractive person, mine
and my honor and affections, alike, are to be
sacrificed. She shall hear from me all the
truth. She shall know whether it be compatible
with her honor and happiness, or the dignity
of her character, to unite herself, in such
bonds with a man who has proved so deadly,
so dishonorable to her sex. And, oh, God”—
she exclaimed, sinking fervently on her knee—
“if it shall so happen that I save one such as
I, from such a folly as mine, may it not expiate
in thy sight, some portion of the sad offence
of which I have been guilty.”

She rose firmly and without a tear. Her
eyes were red, her cheeks were burning with
the fever of her whole frame, and she seemed,
in all respects, the embodiment of a divine,
a glorious inspiration. I was awed—I was
alarmed. I had never before seen her exhibit
any thing like daring or firmness of purpose.
She was now the striking personification of
both. She approached and sought to pass by
me. I seized her hand. She withdrew it
quickly and indignantly.

“Begone” she exclaimed—“I scorn, I despise
you. Think not to keep me back. You
have brought death and shame among my
people in devoting me to both. You shall
pollute me no more. Nay, speak not. No

more falsehood, no more falsehood, for your
own soul's sake. I would not that you should
seem meaner in my sight, than you already
are.”

I seized her hand, and retained it by a fierce
grasp.—

“Emily,” I exclaimed, “what would you do
—why is this? I ask but for delay, give me
but a month, and all will be well—you shall
then have what you ask—you shall then be
satisfied.”

“False—false! These assurances, sir, deceive
me not now—they deceive me no more.
My hope is gone, forever gone, that you will
do me justice. I see through your hypocrisy
—I know all your villainy, and Constance
Claiborne shall know it too. Ha! do you
start when her name is but mentioned. Think

you, I know it not all—know I not that you
have been bought with money—that, vile and
mercenary as you are, you have not only sold
me, and this unborn pledge of your dishonesty
and my dishonor, but you have sold yourself.
Seek not to keep me back. She shall hear it
all from these lips, that thenceafter shall forever
more be silent.”

She struggled to free herself from my grasp,
and endeavored to pass by me, with a desperate
effort—her strength was opposed to mine,
and in the heat of the struggle I forgot that
victory in such a contest would be the heaviest
shame. Yet, I only sought, at first, to arrest
her progress. As I live, I had then no
other object beyond. I certainly did not intend
violence, far less further crime. But the fate
was upon me;—she persisted in her design,

and in the effort to prevent her passage, I
hurled her to the ground. I paused, in a
deadly stupor, after this. I was no longer a
reasoning—a conscious being. She looked
up to me imploringly—the desperate feeling
which heretofore had nerved and strengthened
her, seemed utterly to have departed. The
tears were in her eyes, and, at that moment,
she would have obeyed as I commanded—
she would have yielded to all my requisitions
—she would have been my slave. She met
no answering gentleness in my eyes, and with
a choking and vain effort at speech, she turned
her face despairingly upon the still dewy
grass, and sobbed, as if the strings of her
heart were breaking in unison with each convulsion
of her breast. At that moment, I know
not what demon possessed me. There was
a dead—a more than customary silence in all
things around me. I felt a fury within me—
a clamorous anxiety about my heart—a gnawing
something that would not sleep, and could
not be silent; and, without a thought of what
I was to do, or what had been done, I knelt
down beside her. My eyes wandered wildly
around the forest, but at length, invariably settled,
in the end, upon her. There was an instinct
in all this. She had the look of an enemy
to the secret and impelling nature within
me, and, without uttering a single word, my
fingers with an infernal gripe, were upon her
throat. She could not now doubt the desperate
character of my design, yet did she not
struggle—but her eyes, they spoke, and such
a language! A chain which I myself had
thrown about her neck—that neck all symetry
and whiteness—was in my way. I sought,
but vainly, to tear it apart with my hands, and
could only do so—with my teeth. In stooping
for this, she writhed her head round and lifted
her lips to mine. I shrunk, as from the
fang of a serpent. They had a worse sting,
at that moment, in my eyes. Mournfully, as
she saw this, she implored my mercy.—

“Spare, forgive, dearest Martin, I will never
vex you again—spare me this time, and I will
be silent. Kill me not—kill me not”—more
wildly she exclaimed as my grasp became more
painful—“I am too young to die—I am too
bad to perish in my sins. Spare me—spare
me. I will not accuse you—I—God! Oh,
God!”—and she was dead—dead beneath my
hands!